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Waste Haulers Arraigned on Solid Waste and False Claims Charges

WOBURN - A Cambridge-based Landscaping company and its principals were arraigned today for fabricating documents sent with invoices to the cities of Cambridge, Lawrence and Chelsea for waste disposal services and dumping solid waste at unpermitted waste facilities.

Jayco Landscaping Supply Co., ("Jayco") of Cambridge, and its principals, John Toyias, 44, of Weston, and Charles Garabedian, 61, of Marlborough, were charged with Presentment of False Claims, to the Cities of Cambridge (6 counts), Chelsea (2 counts) and Lawrence (2 counts). Garabedian was charged with Presentment of False Claims (1 count). Toyias was charged with Conspiracy to Present False Claims (1 count). Jayco, Garabedian, and Toyias, were also charged with violating the Solid Waste Act, Jayco (10 counts), Toyias (1 count), and Garabedian (1 count). The defendants were arraigned yesterday in Middlesex Superior Court. All of the defendants pled not guilty and were released on personal recognizance.

In 2007, Jayco was hired by the city of Cambridge to haul miscellaneous municipal waste generated by the Cambridge Department of Public Works. The contract between the city of Cambridge and Jayco required that Jayco provide weight slips, for the trash they hauled, and disposal slips for payment to the city. The contract also mandated that Jayco take street sweepings to a landfill permitted to accept such waste.

An investigation by authorities determined that Jayco was not dumping the street sweepings at an authorized landfill, as it had contracted to do, but rather was bringing the sweepings to its own facility in Waltham and also commingling it with other waste. Authorities allege the defendants also fabricated documentation and then submitted them to the city along with invoices. According to authorities, those documents purported to be invoices from a permitted landfill that, in fact, never received the waste or issued any invoices and falsely represented a weight for material that was never weighed. Similarly, documents submitted to the Cities of Chelsea and Lawrence showed that their waste was being weighed, when it was not.

The indictments stem from an investigation by the Cambridge Police Department and the Massachusetts Environmental Crimes Strike Force (ECSF), an interagency unit that includes prosecutors from the Attorney General's Office, Environmental Police Officers assigned to the Attorney General's Office, and investigators and engineers from the MassDEP. The Massachusetts Environmental Crimes Strike Force (ECSF) is overseen by Attorney General Martha Coakley, MassDEP Commissioner Laurie Burt and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian A. Bowles. The ECSF investigates and prosecutes crimes that harm or threaten the state's water, air, or land and that pose a significant threat to human health.

The indictments were returned on March 25, 2010. The defendants were arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court yesterday. They are scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial hearing on May 27, 2010.

Assistant Attorney General David Lieberman, of Attorney General Coakley's Environmental Crimes Strike Force, is prosecuting the case. The lead investigators on the case were Detective Brian O'Connor of the Cambridge Police Department's Major Crimes Unit, and Richard Tomczyk of MassDEP.